Monday, April 16, 2007

All in Little Boxes

Ok, I think the Great Relabeling Project of 2007 is completed. I've stopped looking. Whatever catagory it is in now, it's in there for the duration.

Ophelia goes to the vet in about an hour. While I really want to know what is wrong with her, I really don't want to take her to the vet. In part, it's my reluctance to hear potential bad news. But really, it's because the last four times I've taken her to the vet, she's peed on me.

No kidding. Copiously.

So, I think my reluctance to cart Her Royal Waterworks around is natural and understandable. In her kitty carrier, Ophelia is no happy camper. Aside from the pitiful, high pitched, death declaring yowls that most any cat will produce in the situation, Ophelia suffers additional stress. It causes her to Velcro Claw what ever she touches, and then she lets loose. Usually, her kitty carrier is in my lap when this happens, which you'd think would help contain the flood. Uh Uh. Biggest Cat Bladder on Record. Once or twice, I've taken her out of the carrier to try calming her down. SUCH a bad idea. The car seats were saved only because I have a big lap and great strength of will.

Have you ever sat for an hour and a half in a vet's office waiting area stuffed with assorted cats, dogs, ferrets and two very annoy cockatiels while in denim shorts soaked with panicked cat pee? It does tend to make you the unwilling center of attention -- at least for the canine contingent. Cat pee and denim is better than anything by Giorgio Armani or Kenneth Cole, at least in the dog world. It's also itchy. EXTREMELY itchy. My already sensitive hide was not happy. However, at our old vet, once you made it IN to his office waiting area, you did not risk leaving. First, someone was triple parked behind your car already. Second, you would NOT get back in. Third, it would be exactly like this on any other day you showed up, since they worked First come, First serve and it's a very popular office. You'd already gone halfway up Everest if you had a chair. No point in backing out now just because of a picky little thing like lack of oxygen or soggy britches.

But not today. Today we are trying a new vet, located much closer to the house (thus reducing car-ride trauma AND potential pee time --we should be in the car all of 8 minutes, and that's if we have to wait at the light) and they take appointments. I'm hoping to get her in without mishap. I'm taking an extra towl and a plastic bag anyway.

I'm also trying to prepare myself for hearing bad news while hoping for good news. I seem to spend a lot of my life trying to "rehearse" for the awful. An average life contains many words you just don't want to hear, and they tend to leap at you like surprise algebra tests, so I make my best effort to practice ahead of time how to handle things: what I'll say, what I'll do, what I'll feel. Years before my dad died I had already run through many times in my head what would need doing, how to tell my brothers, who I'd need to call, what funeral arrangements would need to be made. I literally had a mental script.

When the event actually happened, at first I broke down completely. After about an hour, the script kicked in. I said things as I'd rehearsed them in my head. I made arrangements (or my wonderful Husband did) and got through all the things that needed getting through. While it didn't do a damn thing to help me deal with what I felt or stop me from crying so much my eyes became inflamed, at least it spared me a lot of other horrible, awkward, brain blowing moments. I got through with relative grace, and I think my dad would have been -- well, proud of me.

So I'm rehearsing for my cat's diagnosis in my head, trying to prepare equally for having to put her down, having to enjoy her last days while keeping her comfortable, and having to trick her into taking medication without losing a finger. You'd think, with a talent like that, I could also juggle three oranges without getting banged in the forehead, but apparently it doesn't transfer.